Eating Authors: Lee French

Though this blog series appears bright and early every Monday morning, I often put the individual pieces to bed days before they’ll post. Not so today’s installment. Rather, I’ve just returned from a phenomenal weekend at Capclave, one that began early Friday morning and only ended when I arrived back home, weary but quite contented on Sunday afternoon.

And it was at just such a time and in just such a state, that I realized “whoops, I hadn’t prepared the next EATING AUTHORS. Fortunately, this week’s guest, Lee French, had already long since sent me her most memorable meal.

Lee’s the author of assorted books, likely most known for the Maze Beset Trilogy, and The Greatest Sin series (the fifth book of which, A Curse of Memories, came out last summer), but has also written other works, some set in her fantasy world of Ilauri.

Right about now I suspect she’s organizing and preparing for the madness of NaNoWriMo, some three weeks away, because she generously serves as a Municipal Liaison for the Olympia region in Washington state.

Oh, and she also bikes.

LMS: Welcome, Lee. What’s your most memorable meal?

LF: A slice of berry pie, a scoop of ice cream, and a banana at 7am. The banana made it a respectable breakfast. I sat alone on a hilltop, surrounded by a thousand people, in bright, warm sunshine and a light breeze. Thin plastic sheets covered a herd of aluminum picnic tables assembled to accommodate the endlessly shifting crowd inside a volunteer fire department station. Others nearby enjoyed more traditional breakfast fare in the form of pancakes, eggs, sausages, and fruit. The view beyond the horde, the tractors, and the haybales revealed the bumpy, hilly terrain of northeast Iowa, thick with trees and stubbornly terraced fields, sprawling houses, and winding roads. The small town with a name I don’t remember had collected a small army of friendly residents to serve and sell us the food.

The best meal ever happened on the final day of Ragbrai XLVI, the 44th iteration of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Every year in late July, as many as twenty thousand cyclists descend upon Iowa. Like a plague of locusts, we sweep across the state, from the Missouri to the Mississippi in seven days, and devour every kind of food and drink we can find, leaving a trail of money and memories in our wake. The ride is a carnival on two wheels. Beer, pie, bacon, and corn fill the air and our bellies. Water rains from sprinklers and temporary fountains set up for us. Sometimes, it’s over 100 degrees. Sometimes, it’s under 30. Every day is a minimum of fifty miles.

This meal, though, wasn’t just a meal. It was a Moment. Number 44 was my fifth time riding. Thousands of miles of training led to it. Hundreds of hours of sweat and aching muscles led to it. Dozens of mad, endorphin-incited grins led to it. It’s the best worst vacation I’ve ever taken. Like thousands of other lunatics, I keep going back for more punishment.

Ragbrai is awful. I camp, which I hate. I ride, which is grueling and painful because it takes six to eight hours to get from one town to the next. I train, which takes time away from things I like doing more. I eat, which involves shoving copious quantities of food into my food-hole to avoid exhaustion, not the more pleasant savoring of delicious things. I sunburn, which happens because I’m fair-skinned and sometimes miss spots or forget to reapply in a timely fashion.

I’ve battled heat exhaustion and hypothermia, ridden through rain, hail, tornado warnings, and clouds of flying bugs. I’ve evaded disastrous crashes by pure luck. I’ve leaned against my bike and cried for how hard it was that day. I’ve been insulted for my girth while wearing my Ragbrai XL jersey (Extra Large, get it? Hilarious.). I’ve put on wet clothes at 5:30am in 40 degree weather because I had nothing dry to wear. I’ve had to stop because suncreen ran into my eyes and temporarily blinded me. I’ve gotten food poisoning.

Once, I blacked out while assembling my tent. Another time, I fell over because my pedal clip got stuck and scraped the heck out of my hand, knee, and elbow. There are no words for the peculiar pain of the posterior caused by prolonged contact with a bicycle seat.

At least one person dies on the ride every year, and it could be me. And we use porta-potties for a week straight.

But then, I’ve also seen the orange and pink of sunrise on my bike with no excuse not to stop and enjoy it. Strangers talk to strangers and we remind each other that, no matter what we see on the news or internet, people are mostly decent and kind. Libraries in small towns have excellent people. Nothing beats the joy of conquering a steep hill without getting off the bike to walk. I make jokes and we’re all too tired and spent not to laugh. Some of the landscape in Iowa is amazing. The sheer volume of endorphins is the most amazing high imaginable. The simple joy of an unexpected real toilet takes you by surprise the first time you feel it.

Also, you can eat things like a slice of chocolate covered frozen cheesecake on a stick and feel no remorse. Biking requires calories. Lots of calories.

Many people bring friends or family with them and ride together. My first year, I went with a group of people I had nothing in common with. Every subsequent year, I’ve gone alone. Which is why I had a Moment that morning on that hill.

Knowing that Ragbrai would probably be my last — chronic knee problems plus increasing professional obligations have made it more and more challenging every year — I paused to savor the last morning, covered from head to toe in UV clothing and sunscreen. The pie tasted like freedom and victory. I did a thing for me and me alone. No one else got a say in whether I did the thing or not. No one else trained for me. No one else climbed the hills for me. No one else took care of my bike for me. No one else drove me out there, and no one else would drive me back.

Thanks, Lee. There is no pie, no taste, as exquisite as embracing the power of your own choices.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2017 at 7:30 am and is filed under Plugs.
You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.